Which oil company has the smallest environmental footprint?

New Greenopia report ranks oil companies according to environmental impact and effort.

Let’s face it, there are no environmentally friendly oil companies. It’s a contradiction in terms.

Every major oil company in the world has a significant negative environmental impact — one that could only be eliminated by making a complete switch to renewable energy. But, green ratings and rankings site Greenopia.com has evaluated 10 oil giants to determine who’s causing the least damage and making the most effort to be greener.

“Fossil fuels are pretty much at the top of any environmentalist’s black list,” said Doug Mazeffa, director of research at Greenopia. “But until alternative-fuel coalesces into large-scale market availability, cars are a vast and current fact of life and they are powered by refined crude oil.”

British Petroleum came in first as the company that’s doing the most to lessen its impact. Greenopia praises BP’s user-friendly, transparent sustainability reports, its efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and its portfolio of renewable energy investment. Greenopia called BP “the place to go if you want some of the more responsibly sourced oil in the U.S.”

Coming in dead last is Citgo, which has the least complete environmental reporting of any company evaluated. Greenopia says,

We couldn’t even track down the total greenhouse gas emissions, something that every other company reports front and center. And even though Citgo had an impressively low number of oil spills, they don’t even report the volume of oil spilled, so there is no way of being sure how big of an accomplishment this is. Likewise we don’t have a feel for the amount of water consumed or waste generated. Lastly, Citgo could benefit from other alternative fuels besides ethanol. Ethanol has questionable life cycle benefits and there are many other greener fuel types out there.

Shell clocked in at number six, while Chevron rated eight out of 10. See the complete list at Greenopia.com.

Production efficiency, oil spill efficiency, sustainability reporting, pursuit of alternative fuels, stance on climate change and resource efficiency were among the criteria used to rank BP, Exxon, Chevron, Shell, Hess, Citgo, Valero, Conoco Phillips, Sunoco and Marathon. Data was collected from the companies’ sustainability and/or annual reports and was normalized against production and revenue to determine each companies’ efficiency relative to its competitors.